“Good morning, niece.” Clad in last night’s plain dark dress, Yvenza appeared formidably vital by the light of day. She bore a tray with a bowl of gruel, some bread, and fried lumps of unidentifiable composition. Beside her paced a gigantic brindled boarhound. “You spent a quiet night, I trust. Peaceful and undisturbed?”
Jianna nodded warily.
“Excellent. I told those boys of mine that I’d whip them bloody if they dared lay hands on you as yet. Good to see that a maternal admonition still carries some weight with the lads. Well, then. I imagine you must be hungry by now.” She advanced to place the tray on the cot, presenting her back to the prisoner.
The door stood open. Jianna took a step toward it and a subterranean growl rumbled from the boarhound. Its head was lowered, fangs bared. She froze.
“Grumper will take you down if you try to run.” Yvenza turned without haste. “And if you raise a hand against me, he’ll tear you apart.” She looked the other up and down. “Not that I’d need his help, as far as that goes. There’s not much to you. I could break your arm or your neck with ease, and I doubt that you could return the compliment.”
“Probably not.” Jianna arched a fastidious brow. “I’m not much of a brawler.”
“No, I don’t suppose your father ever foresaw any need to teach his wee flower the rudiments of self-defense. Now, what would Aureste Belandor regard as suitable subjects? Dancing, perhaps? A little music, a little embroidery?”
“Among other things—mathematics, natural philosophy, languages, and literature, to name a few. Above all, I’ve been taught how to manage a large household, which is more than can be said for you, if I’m to judge by what I’ve seen of this place.” Idiot. She should have kept her mouth shut. Now this virago would probably set the dog on her.
Yvenza, however, merely appeared amused. “Quite the little spitfire, aren’t you, maidenlady? But I advise you to curb your wit in Onartino’s presence. My boy is somewhat hasty of temper, as you may have observed, and far less tolerant than his mother. For your own sake, you’d best learn to avoid provoking your future lord.”
This time Jianna managed to hold her tongue.
“Which brings me to the true topic of discussion.” Yvenza produced a benevolent smile. “You’ve had an entire night to consider matters, niece. I trust you’ve used the time wisely.”
“I’ve used the time to think,” Jianna returned with spurious composure. “I hope you’ve done the same. If you have, then perhaps you’ll avoid a serious error. Set a ransom on me, my father will pay it without hesitation, and you’ll live to enjoy the profit. But if you harm me, he’ll have his vengeance. You may be certain of that.”
“Who speaks of harming you? You are offered a fine marriage. Most girls would be delighted.”
“You’ve threatened me with violence and dishonor. You’ve promised me that you won’t hesitate to carry out those threats, and I believe you. But if you do, then my father will retaliate. He’ll raise a small army, he’ll find this place, and stronghouse though it may be, he’ll burn it to the ground. You and yours will die, else be left homeless and destitute. A high price to pay for the pleasure of ruining a girl who’s never harmed you, wouldn’t you say?”
For a moment Yvenza Belandor regarded her in silence, then curved a genuine smile. “Clever, like your father,” she observed. “And no coward. But still young and apparently not yet much the strategist. Stop and think, maidenlady. How likely is it that Aureste will attack and raze our Ironheart while you lie here within its walls? He’ll never place your precious little life at such risk.”
“Depends on how greatly he’s provoked. Push him too far and he’ll strike back, no matter what.”
“I think not. In any case, I can deal with your father should the occasion arise.”
“Don’t be too sure of that. He knows how to fight. He—”
“His martial prowess, should he actually possess any, is unlikely to display itself. Unless I am much mistaken, the next intelligence he receives will confirm his daughter’s marriage to my son.”
“Yes, you are much mistaken if you think I’ll—”
“What I think is that you’ll consider the consequences of refusal. I will leave you now. I will return in one hour with my oldest son. If at that time you accept his offer of marriage, I shall embrace you as a daughter, and you will be treated as such. If you refuse, I’ll regard our conversation as concluded. Containing my disappointment as best I may, I’ll withdraw, leaving you alone with Onartino. What happens thereafter will be a matter entirely between you and him.”
“I don’t believe you,” Jianna lied. She had gone cold inside. She tried to moisten her dry lips and failed. “You’re not a monster. You won’t do this.”
“You’ve a great deal to learn, maidenlady. I shall enjoy observing the progress of your education.” Yvenza sauntered from the room, trailed by the dog. The door closed behind them, and the bolt scraped.
Jianna stood staring at the locked door. Presently her vision blurred and the hand she raised to her eyes came away wet with tears. She dashed the droplets away. No time for tears now; she needed to think. If Aureste Belandor found himself imprisoned and endangered, he wouldn’t weep; he’d find some way of besting his enemies. His daughter would do the same. She drew a ragged breath and strove to focus. But her mind was clogged with bewilderment and terror; there was no room left for strategy. No room, no time. Yvenza had promised to return in one hour, together with her subhuman son. One hour, and they would be here, and she did not let her mind touch upon what would happen then.
The cellar air was chilly, but the sweat prickled under her arms and the palms of her hands were clammy. Her eyes ranged the trap of a room, found no escape, and shut—but that only worsened matters, sharpening the mental images. She saw Onartino, his muscular bulk, his dead eyes, and there was no weapon with which to fend him off, nothing to hide behind, nothing to stop him except a promise to place herself in his power forever, and even that ultimate concession could only postpone the inevitable for a little while.
How little?
Any respite, however brief, might offer an advantage. That’s what Aureste Belandor would say if he were here. He would tell her how to outwit her captors, how to lie to them and purchase herself a little time. Or perhaps he didn’t need to tell her; the answer seemed suddenly clear enough. Why had it taken her so long to see it?
She would promise to marry Onartino. Some indeterminate interval would elapse before a legitimate magistrate empowered to perform the ceremony could be secured. During that time she would be treated decently—Yvenza had said so. They would surely let her out of the cellar. If she played her part well, they might even come to think her resigned to her fate. They would relax their vigilance, but she would not relax her own. She would watch continually, and sooner or later her chance would come. She would escape Ironheart, make her way back home, tell her father what had happened, and then he would order this entire nest of outlaws exterminated. Maybe he would let her watch the executions.
It was all there, whole and complete in her mind, the fruit of desperation. But Aureste Belandor’s daughter would make it work.
She became aware that she was trembling. She would have to control that.
Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, she bowed her head and willed herself to think of Vitrisi and the people she had left there. Her father. Uncle Innesq. Even prissy Uncle Nalio. They were not lost to her; she would see them all again, and soon.
The diversion was effective. Her breathing eased, and her pulse steadied. When the door opened again, she was almost calm.
“Time’s up.” Yvenza, intolerably casual, stepped into the room.
Beside her Onartino loomed like a monolith. His eyes, although pale in color, somehow seemed to reflect none of the morning light.
At sight of him, the hatred and terror swept through Jianna in fresh waves. She concealed both, resisting the natural impulse to back away. Her face was as expressio
nless as Onartino’s own as she informed her jailer, “I will marry your son on one condition.”
“No conditions.” Onartino’s opaque gaze never flickered.
“You pique my curiosity, maidenlady,” Yvenza conceded. “I will allow you to state your condition.”
“If I’m truly to wed, then the marriage must be legal and as decent as possible under the circumstances,” Jianna returned steadily. “The ceremony must be properly performed by a magistrate or some other equivalent authority.”
“We’ll decide who does the mumbling.” Onartino shrugged. “You’ll take what comes.”
“It must be done right. That’s the only way I can ever in good conscience consent.”
“Your consent isn’t required,” he reminded her. “Haven’t you gotten that through your head yet?”
“Softly, son,” Yvenza advised. “Your bride makes a good point. Nothing must compromise the legitimacy of the next Belandor heir. My grandson will be conceived safely and solidly within the confines of matrimony. I’d keep that in mind if I were you.”
“Well, you aren’t me, and you’re pitching a silly female fit over nothing.”
Yvenza backhanded him across the face so hard that he staggered. Onartino pressed a hand to his reddening cheek. For an instant his eyes came to glaring life, then went dead again.
“That’s no way to speak to your mother,” Yvenza pointed out.
“Sorry, Mother.”
“That sort of talk makes me feel that I haven’t trained you well. Am I right about that? Is additional schooling called for?”
“No, Mother.”
“I truly hope not. Now listen to me. Aureste’s girl here transparently plays for time, but she happens to be right. Your son and heir must be legitimate.”
“And who’s to judge that? I’ll take the title of magnifico by double right as Onarto’s oldest son and Aureste’s son-in-law. My own son by this one”—he jabbed an indicative finger—“inherits, no questions asked. When that time comes, you really think anyone will be asking who performed the marriage ceremony, maybe decades earlier?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Yvenza observed serenely. “It is a chance we are not going to take.”
“That should be my decision.”
“Yes, it should, and it grieves me to find you unequal to the challenge.”
“You should know better. All right, Mother. What do you mean to do? Lead this stolen cow into Orezzia to stand up before a justice of the peace? I wish you well with that.”
“Are you attempting sarcasm, my son? You’ve no talent for it. Spare yourself and your listeners,” Yvenza advised. There was no reply, and she continued, “The East Reach Traveler is an official representative of the Orezzian courts—”
“Appointed by a turd of a Taerleezi governor,” Onartino observed.
“No matter. He’s a magistrate with authority to perform marriages. We’ll intercept him.”
“That could take weeks.”
“A few days, more likely.”
“Too long to sit around waiting. No need, anyway. Look, we rule this stretch of countryside. Let’s just declare her my wife on our own authority and get on with it.”
“You’ll have to restrain your ardor, my young gallant.”
“That won’t be hard.” His contemptuous glance raked Jianna’s body. “But I don’t like wasting time.”
“Your consent isn’t required.” Yvenza favored her son with a steely smile. “Haven’t you gotten that through your head yet?”
He shrugged.
Turning to the prisoner, Yvenza remarked, “You’ve made a sensible decision, daughter, and your title of maidenlady is safe for a little while longer. I am already planning the wedding, however. It will be small and modest, but deeply satisfying to some of the parties concerned.”
FIVE
“Downstairs? Taerleezi soldiers in the reception gallery?” Aureste Belandor demanded.
His informant puffed her air sacs. Distended membranes quivered, and croaking affirmation emerged.
“In Faerlonnish,” Aureste directed. Confronting empty golden eyes, he repeated the command sharply. These Sishmindris often feigned linguistic limitation, but almost all of them had mastered the language of their masters to some degree. He bent a piercing gaze upon her.
“Yes. Two,” she replied in her hoarse inhuman voice, adding with palpable reluctance, “and other.”
“What other?”
She flexed her brow ridges, the Sishmindri equivalent of a shrug. The impertinence deserved punishment, but he was pressed for time and therefore dealt her greenish face the most perfunctory of slaps—more of a threat than a real blow. Even such fleeting contact with the cool, slightly moist flesh of the amphibian was distasteful. He drew his hand back quickly. She neither flinched nor uttered a sound. Her silent impassivity was appropriate but annoying, and he found himself wondering whether the stroke of a riding crop across her shoulders would draw some livelier response. Before he had made up his mind to perform the experiment, she bowed deeply and withdrew.
Aureste descended to the reception gallery, there to encounter a brace of Taerleezi guards, one of them an underofficer. With them waited a travel-stained civilian of Faerlonnish aspect.
“Gentlemen.” Aureste inclined his head to the angle precisely calculated to convey the obligatory respect due Taerleezi authority while maintaining the superior dignity of a Vitrisian magnifico.
The Taerleezi guards saluted correctly, in minimal acknowledgment of their host’s rank but without the vigor or deference undeserved by a member of the conquered Faerlonnish.
“Communication from the Eleventh Section Watch Station, Magnifico,” announced the underofficer. “This traveler here—what did you say your name is?”
“Rivviu Chelzo, in service to His Lordship the Magnificiari Abbevedri of Orezzia,” the civilian replied.
“This Chelzo here brings news that concerns you, Magnifico,” the underofficer continued. “You’d best hear it.”
“Speak, then,” Aureste directed.
“According to your will, Honored Magnifico.” Chelzo bowed in typically gauche Orezzian style. “I was traveling upon my master the magnificiari’s command to the city of Vitrisi, along the VitrOrezzi Bond. Scarcely halfway to my destination I paused along the way, and in a clearing a few paces from the road happened upon a scene of destruction. A fine carriage stood there. The horses were gone, but the passengers remained—two women, both dead by violence. Seven men liveried in grey and silver likewise lay dead on the ground, together with one other corpse, plainly dressed, a kerchief hiding his face. It was clear that the carriage had been attacked by a gang of highwaymen. Alone I could do nothing for the dead, nor would I entrust the news of the massacre to the folk at the wayside inns, for fear of looting. Thus I continued on to Vitrisi, where I told my tale to the authorities at the first Watch station I could find. And they have brought me here to you, Honored Magnifico.”
“This Orezzian has described the arms on the carriage door,” the underofficer clarified unnecessarily. “Three wheels of black fire upon a silver field. These are the arms of House Belandor.”
… the passengers remained—two women, both dead by violence.
Aureste Belandor scarcely heard his own roar of furious anguish. The surrounding atmosphere seemed to boil and burn. He struck out reflexively and only dimly sensed the impact of his fist on flesh and unyielding bone. The reddish haze momentarily clouding his vision cleared, and he looked down to behold Rivviu Chelzo stretched out on the floor, blood streaming from a split lip. The luckless messenger coughed and spat out a tooth. The two Taerleezi soldiers stirred a little but made no move to interfere.
Aureste restrained his impulse to kick the fallen man. The blood was thundering in his ears and a feverish heat possessed him, but he could not afford to give way entirely to rage. Two dead women, only two, when three had embarked from Vitrisi. A constriction in his throat threatened to muffle his voice, but he
managed to command steadily enough, “Get up.”
Rivviu Chelzo cowered. His eyes jumped to his Taerleezi companions in vain search of assistance.
“Come, man, I won’t hurt you,” Aureste promised impatiently. “Get up.”
Chelzo obeyed with reluctance.
“Describe the two women.”
Chelzo’s gaze wandered anew in search of help or escape, found none, and returned to his interrogator’s ashen face. Wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he answered, “One inside the carriage, of middle years with greying hair piled up in a tower, generous girth, fur-trimmed cloak, a lady. The other on the ground, much younger and smaller, hard to judge what her face might have been, light brown hair all in curls, ordinary clothes, not a lady. Maidservant, I think.”
“And what of another—young, slender, well garbed, very beautiful, with dark hair and black brows?”
“No. Nobody like that.”
“If you are lying to me, pig, I’ll exterminate your entire family down to the newest suckling.”
“I speak the truth, Magnifico.” Chelzo swallowed fervently. “There were only the two women, neither as you describe. Believe me, Magnifico.”
Believe him. He burned to believe. Jianna, still alive out there. She was clever and resourceful. Somehow she had managed to escape. She had run off into the woods, eluded her assailants, gotten clean away, and soon she would send word to her father. She would easily find help—anyone she encountered should consider himself privileged to serve her—and very soon a messenger would arrive, any minute now—
Or perhaps she had not actually escaped, maybe that was too much to expect. They had taken her prisoner, but they wouldn’t harm her, not when they discovered her identity. Jianna would have sense enough to name her father, or else they would simply recognize the Belandor crest on the carriage, and they would demand a high price for her safe return, but he would pay gladly, anything they asked, and then they would send her home.
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